


Bugs, Books, and Boots

by ladyhelium



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2816051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyhelium/pseuds/ladyhelium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Tuc Fic Exchange 2014</p>
<p>Prompt 1: Boots, after dismissing her adventures as mere dreams, falls back into the Underland years later</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bugs, Books, and Boots

She was falling. Free falling through a dark space but never landing on anything. She started nearing a light at the end of this abyss before everything went blank. Margaret was suddenly shaken awake and she toppled off her bed, landing with a ‘thud’ on the floor. “Hey, hey? Meg? You alright?” a feminine voice called out in the dark. Margaret opened her eyes and found herself tangled in her blankets on the floor of the dorm room she shared with her friend. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Go back to bed,” Margaret said, pulling herself up. She’s only ever had that dream as a child. The strange black tunnel and the abnormally large animals seemed a myth to her, as she grew up. Margaret got back into bed and laid there, recalling the tiny details that began popping up in her mind, fresh even after years of being cast aside.

The bats, the vows, the large stone city and the people. The people with the violet eyes and pale skin. There were large rats, and mice, and even a giant lizard. Margaret recalled her younger dream self being friends with two giant cockroaches and shook her head in disbelief. It seemed astonishing how she had believed all of these tales to be real, as a child. 

“Goodnight, Meg.” Margaret pulled the covers over her body and sighed. “Goodnight.” 

 

Early the next morning Margaret woke up and saw her roommate had already left for her class on the weekend. It was Saturday so Margaret only had to work her shift at the bookstore a couple of blocks away. She got out of bed, grabbing her toothbrush and heading towards the communal bathroom. 

After freshening up Margaret headed out the door of her dormitory, pulling her coat on. She slipped by two people bickering in the front of the dorm and was on her way. Margaret whistled a little song to herself as she walked down the streets covered in hanging strings of lights and fallen snow. She rounded a corner and found herself in front of the bookstore.

Margaret pushed the door open and heard the small bells ring as she stepped in. “Hey,” her boss said, greeting Margaret with a smile. “Man, you look beaten up. Sleep okay?” Margaret set her bag down and located the cart with books that needed to be re-shelved. “Sort of. A dream I had as a child came back last night and I couldn’t sleep very well after.” She strolled the metal cart to the shelf closest on the left and began unpacking books. 

“What was in the dream?” her boss asked, taking some of the books on the cart and crossing the small store to the other side of shelves. “Big, enormous bugs. Cockroaches I think. Like larger than me.” Margaret picked up a book about the Greek god, Ares, and placed it on the shelf with the rest of the series that she had stocked last week.   
“Big bugs. Interesting. What else?” Margaret’s boss questioned. “This weird, city that these pale, purple-eyed people lived in. But the even weirder thing about it was the city was underground.” Margaret placed books about the caves in Lascaux and New Mexico in a shelf labeled geographic and pushed the cart to the next shelf.

“You should write this dream of yours up. Publish it as a fantasy book or something. Might even sell here.” Margaret's boss held her arms up and spun around the empty bookstore. Margaret only laughed and shook her head. “No, no. I can’t really write and if I could, I wouldn’t.” She stacked some books that had been placed on the wrong shelves and moved them to the Teen-Fiction stands. “I think it’s time to open, ready?” her boss asked. Margaret nodded and moved to stand behind the register, putting her name tag on that was printed with her childhood nickname, “Boots.”

“Hi, I was, uh, wondering if you had any books on medicine. I need to get my fiancèe something for the holidays.” A man with, what looked like, violet eyes, and wearing what appeared like a dark karate uniform, approached Margaret behind the counter and looked like he was in a hurry. “Oh, yeah, right over their, behind the biography section.” The man huffed out a quick thank you before dashing to the back of the bookstore and Margaret continued to answer calls and save books for people pre-ordering them.

“Find the right one?” Margaret asked, when the man with the violet eyes came back, holding a hardcover copy of a book, Margaret couldn’t see. He nodded and handed her the money, taking the bag and saying thank you, before leaving. Margaret peeked over the counter and saw the man had left his wallet. She ran around the counter and picked up the leather bound wallet. “Hey, I’ll be right back. That man dropped his wallet,” Margaret called, hoping her boss heard her. She took off her name tag and put on her jacket, dashing out of the store.

 

The cold December air shocked Margaret at first, but when she spotted the man’s odd clothing style in the pool of puffy winter jackets, she darted after him. “Sir,” Margaret yelled, the brisk wind stinging her throat. “Sir, you left your wallet.” Margaret saw the man head towards the park and forced herself to move faster.

All of a sudden, the man dropped to his knees and pulled up a stone that was part of a walkway. He secured the bag from the bookstore to his chest and jumped. Margaret watched as his figure sank out of view before running to the stone walkway. The stone had moved back in place but Margaret could see the outline of which one was supposed to move. She put the wallet in her jacket pocket and tried getting a grip on the stone. On the first pull the stone didn’t budge but after a few tries, the stone came free. Margaret peeked into the dark abyss and squinted.

How did that man just disappear like that?, Margaret wondered. She was about to get up to put it in the store’s lost and found when an especially strong wind came from both ends of the hole in the walkway and Margaret fell in. Fell is a bit of an understatement. Falling but never landing on anything fits her situation better.   
Margaret couldn’t see anything around her. Everything was a kind of dark where you could never really know if anything was hiding in the shadows. She glanced down and saw she was nearing a light. She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped this was just another dream.

Thud. Margaret landed on something and she hoped it was only her bedroom floor. Scritch, scratch. Margaret opened her eyes and found herself facing a large population of cockroaches. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from screaming and silently took the wallet out of her pocket. “Um, a man d-dropped this. Would you know anyone who would be missing this?” Margaret tried holding the wallet up higher, as many of the bugs had lifted their antennae and began twitching them.

One of them stepped forward and bowed it’s head towards Margaret before saying, “Princess has returned.” All the bugs began clapping their antennae and lifted Margaret on their backs, carrying her down to where she saw glimpses of light. “Princess Boots, Regalia has missed you.” Margaret recalled all her dreams as a child and her most recent one and smiled. “I’ve missed Regalia too.”


End file.
